Katrine eBook

There was still no spoken word as they walked side
by side along the path which led to the house.
At the turn into the wider way there was a tall pine-tree,
the boughs beginning high from the ground, the turf
beneath them covered with brown pine-needles.
There was a bench here, upon which they had often
sat together. In the moonlight this place under
the tree was in a soft, warm glow. As they drew
near it Frank spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
“Sit here, just for a minute?”

It seemed as though they were alone together in the
world. In the moonlit gloom under the pine they
stood, near, nearer, and at length he put his arm
around her gently, not drawing her toward him, only
letting it lie around her waist, as though they had
a right to be there, heart to heart, in the stillness
of the night. Standing thus, he felt her tremble,
noted her quickened breath, and the rise and fall of
her breast and shoulders because of his caress.

Although they could not see each other in the gloom,
she knew his lips sought hers. By an indefinable
instinct she turned from him twice before their lips
met in a long kiss of passion and content. They
kissed each other again before he drew her down beside
him on the garden bench in the flower-scented dusk.

“You care?” she asked, in a whisper, her
breath on his cheek.

“More than I thought I could care for anything
in life,” he answered.

* * * *
*

It was after ten when Nora’s shrill voice recalled
them to themselves.

Standing together, she asked, as she bade him good-night:
“You—­are—­going—­away?”

For answer he clasped her slim white hands behind
his throat and drew her toward him.

“What do you think?” he said, his lips
kissing hers in the speaking of the words.

“I hope you will not go.”

“I shall not.” And then: “Oh,
for a few days, perhaps, to take mother to Bar Harbor;
but I shall come back. And we’ll have the
whole long summer together, you and I; you and I,”
he repeated. “Good-night. Kiss me,
Katrine!”

“Good-night,” she said, raising her lips
to his; and then, almost as though it were a benediction,
she added: “God keep you always just as
you are, beloved.” And as he had done many
times before, Francis Ravenel felt powerless before
this girl who gave all, asking nothing in return.

IX

THE TRUTH

Frank did not leave Ravenel even for the few days
which he had mentioned to Katrine as a possibility.
Accompanied only by her maid, Mrs. Ravenel started
to Bar Harbor without him. June drifted into July,
and still he lingered at the plantation.

And all the summer days were spent with Katrine Dulany.
At first he believed that he would probably tire of
the whole affair quickly. He was surprised to
find that he did not. He found her always new.
There was an elusive quality to her, days when she
would barely permit him to touch her hand, when she
dazzled him by the audacity of her thinking; her indifference
to him, to him who was in no way accustomed to indifference
in women. And a few hours later, perchance, he
would return to find a girl with wistful eyes and
speech of tenderness, with no thought “that
is not for the king,” she told him once.